The first thing visitors to Paragraf’s lab, in the Cambridgeshire village of Somersham, are shown is a thin disc made of synthetic sapphire with a piece of graphene taped on to it. This was the first graphene product the company made, and it quickly evolved to a small wafer of 64 tiny graphene devices arranged in a grid. These days, the company produces six-inch wafers that hold 9,000 chips.
Graphene, a 2D form of carbon, with the atoms arranged in a hexagonal structure, is mainly used to strengthen concrete and paints, but is now being touted as a replacement for silicon in semiconductors. China has started using it to get ahead in the global microchip wars.
